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Do IT this week: Layering
By Dennis J. Willard
Beacon Journal staff writer
POSTED: 08:40 p.m. EDT, Oct 17, 2009
COLUMBUS: Like the surgeon general's warning on tobacco products, four times since 1990 anti-casino groups have placed supplementary material on the ballot explaining the negative effects of gambling — on compulsive gamblers, their spouses and children, and their community.
Not this year.
This year when voters go into the booth or open their absentee ballot paperwork to read the pro and con arguments about Issue 3 — the proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution to allow casinos in four cities — no mention of the social, economic or psychological problems associated with gambling addiction will be found.
The argument against Issue 3, offered by TruthPAC, outlines a litany of reasons to vote no related to the constitution, greedy out-of-state owners, the tax rate, the impact upon church and charitable gambling, etc.
Noticeably absent is any mention of the woes associated with addictive gambling.
''The main theme of the campaign is this is a bad deal for Ohio,'' said Sandy Theis, a spokeswoman for TruthPAC.
''We wanted to get the economic arguments in there and the loopholes, and those aren't always easy to succinctly explain.''
American Policy Roundtable president and Chief Executive Dave Zanotti, who has fought casino gambling for more than 20 years personally and through his conservative organizations, said there is nothing about gambling addictions because TruthPAC is financed by another gambling interest, the MTR Gaming Group, whose chairman is Jeff Jacobs. MTR owns the Mountaineer Casino racetrack and resort in Wheeling, W.Va., and Jacobs Entertainment, of which Jeff Jacobs is chief executive, operates casinos and other gambling outlets in several states.
Casino operators wrote both the pro and con arguments for Issue 3, Zanotti said. Issue 3 is being pushed by Dan Gilbert, majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Penn National Gaming, which owns Raceway Park in Toledo and gambling facilities in other states.
In its literature, TruthPAC acknowledges being financed ''in part by Ohio's historic horse-racing industry.''
Zanotti said his group, Vote No Casinos, wanted the Ohio Ballot Board and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to include one line in the con arguments that stated: ''Casino gambling also creates addictions and ruins lives and families.''
At an Aug. 18 ballot board meeting, Brunner said it was a unique situation for the board, with two different groups looking to write the anti-Issue 3 argument, so she suggested they collaborate.
Two days later, Michael Grodhaus, an attorney representing Vote No Casinos, said his client decided to remain independent of TruthPAC and asked the board to accept his group's anti-Issue 3 arguments.
(You can view the Aug. 20 hearing here: http://www.ohiochannel.org/multimedia/people/media.cfm?file_id=121815&person_id=96806.)
Referring to the battle between casino operators, Grodhaus said, ''it seems that sometimes the proponent of one of the proposals one year ends up being the opponent of a proposal another year. However, the only constant in each of those five campaigns has been the Vote No Casinos Committee and its members.''
With two legislative members on the five-member board absent, Rebecca Egelhoff indicated she agreed that Vote No Casinos had historically opposed expanded gambling and was leaning toward going with their opposition language.
Brunner, however, intervened and said, ''I, for one, as chair of the board or as a member of the board, rather, would be inclined to work with TruthPAC on this and appoint them to be the committee because they have been primarily focused on this issue.''
There was no mention of TruthPAC being funded in part by casino and horse-racing interests. The board voted 3-0 to accept TruthPAC and reject Vote No Casinos. For the record, Theis has been quoted as a spokeswoman for Brunner's campaign for the U.S. Senate.
High suicide rate
Whether the social implications are mentioned or not, they exist.
Jenny Campbell-Roux, Ohio Council on Problem Gambling executive director, said her organization is not taking a position on Issue 3.
''We already have problem gambling in this state without this,'' Campbell-Roux said.
Campbell-Roux said there is a big difference between problem gamblers, and alcoholics and drug addicts.
''Gamblers are more likely to commit, not just try, suicide. A gambler only stops when he or she runs out of money. They run up credit-card debt, take out second mortgages on their homes, often without telling their families, they write bad checks, and they end up bankrupt,'' Campbell-Roux said.
''It's devastating to the family. It's totally devastating to the family.''
The 1999 National Gambling Impact Study Commission Report is considered the most comprehensive look at gambling to date.
The report cites a National Council on Problem Gambling study that found one in five pathological gamblers attempts suicide. And in a survey of 400 Gamblers Anonymous members, two of every three contemplated killing themselves, 47 percent had worked out a plan for suicide and three out of every four stated they wanted to die.
This notion was not overlooked in past efforts to bring casino gambling to Ohio.
In 1990, Alan Spitzer, the auto dealer, wanted to build a casino in Lorain as a pilot project. If the plan had been successful, the state would have been divided seven ways, with a casino in each section.
Voters scanning the reasons to vote no were exposed to the following paragraph in 1990: ''Casino gambling will threaten Ohio's quality of life. The casino's glitz and glamour will lure teenagers and children. Compulsive gambling, alcoholism and job/school absenteeism will rise while family life deteriorates.''
The issue failed 2,098,725 to 1,270,387.
Six years later, it was time to check the pulse of Ohio voters again.
This time, the plan was to amend the constitution to allow riverboat casino gambling in Ohio. Two casinos would be located in Cincinnati, with a third in the same county outside the city; three in Cleveland; one in Lorain; and the eighth in Mahoning County near Youngstown.
The Republican power structure, including then Gov. George Voinovich, opposed the idea.
In their effort to convince voters to kill the plan, the Citizens for a Stronger Ohio Committee, chaired by Voinovich, included the following for Ohioans to consider: ''Families are destroyed. Gambling addictions will multiply, bankruptcies skyrocket, divorces increase and children ignored or abused.''
A majority of voters agreed that Ohio and riverboat gambling did not go together. This issue went down 2,659,076 to 1,639,955.
Almost an entire decade passed, and casino supporters were quiet until the spring of 2005, when a large group of lawmakers, lobbyists, casino and horse-racing interests and others began meeting secretly to try to reach a compromise on a plan to expand gambling in Ohio.
During this time, when the conversation turned to the opposition that Zanotti and his followers would once again muster, a participant at the private meetings boldly asked what would happen if Zanotti got hit by a bus?
A year later, as Ted Strickland was being elected governor, voters were asked to endorse the Learn and Earn plan, designed to bring more than 31,000 slot machines to the seven horse-racing tracks and two locations in Cleveland.
The arguments against the amendment included this bold opening bullet point: ''Learn and Earn Casinos will create at least 109,000 NEW gambling addicts, ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of families.''
By 2006, a new law required the Office of Budget and Management to analyze the fiscal impact on the state of proposed constitutional amendments.
The slot machines, when fully operational, were expected to bring in about $1.08 billion annually and 1 percent of that revenue, or about $11 million, was to be set aside for gambling addiction services.
The budget office analysis cited a then-recent Cleveland State University study that estimated the proposal would lead to 109,000 new pathological and problem gamblers in Ohio.
Residential costs to treat problem gamblers ran from $3,500 to $35,000 per addict. Using a conservative estimate of $3,500, the budget office reported the cost would be $381.5 million for treatment, or about 33, rather than 1, percent of the revenue.
Seeking help
The dollar figure may be accurate, but it's not realistic because gamblers are not prone to seeking help.
Lynn Burkey has been treating addicted gamblers for the past seven years at Meridian Services in Youngstown.
''There is already a large amount of gambling going on in this state and in this area with the lottery and casinos right across the border,'' Burkey said.
He has seen problem gamblers lose their car, home, spouse, but he has experienced a high success rate with the families who come forward and ask for help.
They attend gamblers anonymous meetings, go through counseling and work on financial planning.
''But gamblers traditionally don't ask for help. We're getting the people who have the courage to ask for help. We have a bunch of people out there suffering in silence,'' Burkey said.
The Learn and Earn proposal was burned by voters, with 2,286,911 votes against and 1,753,555 votes for it.
Last year, Lakes Entertainment, an out-of-state company, tried to persuade voters to support another constitutional amendment to allow a casino north of Cincinnati.
The proposal set aside about 1 percent of the gross casino receipts, estimated to be as high as $231.8 million annually, for problem gambling prevention and treatment programs, or about $2.3 million.
Now under Strickland, the office of budget and management did not address the number of new compulsive gamblers or the overall costs to taxpayers for treatment in an analysis of the amendment.
Voinovich co-chaired the Vote No Casinos Committee, and its argument against the proposal included, ''Issue 6 will create new gambling addicts, ruining thousands of lives.''
The measure went down.
In the latest incarnation, Penn National and Gilbert plan to bring casinos to Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus and Cincinnati.
Again, the Strickland administration's analysis is silent on problem gambling.
John Kohlstrand, Ohio Department of Taxation spokesman, said he was not sure why it was not addressed in 2008, but in talking to analysts who worked on the report this year, ''it just never came up in the course of discussion.''
The proposal for four casinos earmarks 2 percent of the gambling revenue, or about $12.9 million a year, to the treatment of problem gambling, substance abuse and related research.
Gambling addiction counselors and others on the front lines have looked carefully at the broad language used and are concerned, as the tobacco prevention groups learned in this state, that lawmakers and the governor could liberally interpret the words and direct portions of the money toward nongambling problems.
To reassure themselves, they should just reread the reasons for voting against Issue 3, because according to TruthPAC, it seems addictive gambling isn't a problem worth mentioning.
Ohio's arguments for and against Issue 3 and other issues are available at the Ohio secretary of state's Web site, http://www.sos.state.oh.us/SOS/publications/electVoterPubs/issues.aspx
/> Dennis J. Willard can be reached at 614-224-1613 or dwillard@thebeaconjournal.com.
COLUMBUS: Like the surgeon general's warning on tobacco products, four times since 1990 anti-casino groups have placed supplementary material on the ballot explaining the negative effects of gambling — on compulsive gamblers, their spouses and children, and their community.
Not this year.
This year when voters go into the booth or open their absentee ballot paperwork to read the pro and con arguments about Issue 3 — the proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution to allow casinos in four cities — no mention of the social, economic or psychological problems associated with gambling addiction will be found.
The argument against Issue 3, offered by TruthPAC, outlines a litany of reasons to vote no related to the constitution, greedy out-of-state owners, the tax rate, the impact upon church and charitable gambling, etc.
Noticeably absent is any mention of the woes associated with addictive gambling.
''The main theme of the campaign is this is a bad deal for Ohio,'' said Sandy Theis, a spokeswoman for TruthPAC.
''We wanted to get the economic arguments in there and the loopholes, and those aren't always easy to succinctly explain.''
American Policy Roundtable president and Chief Executive Dave Zanotti, who has fought casino gambling for more than 20 years personally and through his conservative organizations, said there is nothing about gambling addictions because TruthPAC is financed by another gambling interest, the MTR Gaming Group, whose chairman is Jeff Jacobs. MTR owns the Mountaineer Casino racetrack and resort in Wheeling, W.Va., and Jacobs Entertainment, of which Jeff Jacobs is chief executive, operates casinos and other gambling outlets in several states.
Casino operators wrote both the pro and con arguments for Issue 3, Zanotti said. Issue 3 is being pushed by Dan Gilbert, majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Penn National Gaming, which owns Raceway Park in Toledo and gambling facilities in other states.
In its literature, TruthPAC acknowledges being financed ''in part by Ohio's historic horse-racing industry.''
Zanotti said his group, Vote No Casinos, wanted the Ohio Ballot Board and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to include one line in the con arguments that stated: ''Casino gambling also creates addictions and ruins lives and families.''
At an Aug. 18 ballot board meeting, Brunner said it was a unique situation for the board, with two different groups looking to write the anti-Issue 3 argument, so she suggested they collaborate.
Two days later, Michael Grodhaus, an attorney representing Vote No Casinos, said his client decided to remain independent of TruthPAC and asked the board to accept his group's anti-Issue 3 arguments.
(You can view the Aug. 20 hearing here: http://www.ohiochannel.org/multimedia/people/media.cfm?file_id=121815&person_id=96806.)
Referring to the battle between casino operators, Grodhaus said, ''it seems that sometimes the proponent of one of the proposals one year ends up being the opponent of a proposal another year. However, the only constant in each of those five campaigns has been the Vote No Casinos Committee and its members.''
With two legislative members on the five-member board absent, Rebecca Egelhoff indicated she agreed that Vote No Casinos had historically opposed expanded gambling and was leaning toward going with their opposition language.
Brunner, however, intervened and said, ''I, for one, as chair of the board or as a member of the board, rather, would be inclined to work with TruthPAC on this and appoint them to be the committee because they have been primarily focused on this issue.''
There was no mention of TruthPAC being funded in part by casino and horse-racing interests. The board voted 3-0 to accept TruthPAC and reject Vote No Casinos. For the record, Theis has been quoted as a spokeswoman for Brunner's campaign for the U.S. Senate.
High suicide rate
Whether the social implications are mentioned or not, they exist.
Jenny Campbell-Roux, Ohio Council on Problem Gambling executive director, said her organization is not taking a position on Issue 3.
''We already have problem gambling in this state without this,'' Campbell-Roux said.
Campbell-Roux said there is a big difference between problem gamblers, and alcoholics and drug addicts.
''Gamblers are more likely to commit, not just try, suicide. A gambler only stops when he or she runs out of money. They run up credit-card debt, take out second mortgages on their homes, often without telling their families, they write bad checks, and they end up bankrupt,'' Campbell-Roux said.
''It's devastating to the family. It's totally devastating to the family.''
The 1999 National Gambling Impact Study Commission Report is considered the most comprehensive look at gambling to date.
The report cites a National Council on Problem Gambling study that found one in five pathological gamblers attempts suicide. And in a survey of 400 Gamblers Anonymous members, two of every three contemplated killing themselves, 47 percent had worked out a plan for suicide and three out of every four stated they wanted to die.
This notion was not overlooked in past efforts to bring casino gambling to Ohio.
In 1990, Alan Spitzer, the auto dealer, wanted to build a casino in Lorain as a pilot project. If the plan had been successful, the state would have been divided seven ways, with a casino in each section.
Voters scanning the reasons to vote no were exposed to the following paragraph in 1990: ''Casino gambling will threaten Ohio's quality of life. The casino's glitz and glamour will lure teenagers and children. Compulsive gambling, alcoholism and job/school absenteeism will rise while family life deteriorates.''
The issue failed 2,098,725 to 1,270,387.
Six years later, it was time to check the pulse of Ohio voters again.
This time, the plan was to amend the constitution to allow riverboat casino gambling in Ohio. Two casinos would be located in Cincinnati, with a third in the same county outside the city; three in Cleveland; one in Lorain; and the eighth in Mahoning County near Youngstown.
The Republican power structure, including then Gov. George Voinovich, opposed the idea.
In their effort to convince voters to kill the plan, the Citizens for a Stronger Ohio Committee, chaired by Voinovich, included the following for Ohioans to consider: ''Families are destroyed. Gambling addictions will multiply, bankruptcies skyrocket, divorces increase and children ignored or abused.''
A majority of voters agreed that Ohio and riverboat gambling did not go together. This issue went down 2,659,076 to 1,639,955.
Almost an entire decade passed, and casino supporters were quiet until the spring of 2005, when a large group of lawmakers, lobbyists, casino and horse-racing interests and others began meeting secretly to try to reach a compromise on a plan to expand gambling in Ohio.
During this time, when the conversation turned to the opposition that Zanotti and his followers would once again muster, a participant at the private meetings boldly asked what would happen if Zanotti got hit by a bus?
A year later, as Ted Strickland was being elected governor, voters were asked to endorse the Learn and Earn plan, designed to bring more than 31,000 slot machines to the seven horse-racing tracks and two locations in Cleveland.
The arguments against the amendment included this bold opening bullet point: ''Learn and Earn Casinos will create at least 109,000 NEW gambling addicts, ruining the lives of hundreds of thousands of families.''
By 2006, a new law required the Office of Budget and Management to analyze the fiscal impact on the state of proposed constitutional amendments.
The slot machines, when fully operational, were expected to bring in about $1.08 billion annually and 1 percent of that revenue, or about $11 million, was to be set aside for gambling addiction services.
The budget office analysis cited a then-recent Cleveland State University study that estimated the proposal would lead to 109,000 new pathological and problem gamblers in Ohio.
Residential costs to treat problem gamblers ran from $3,500 to $35,000 per addict. Using a conservative estimate of $3,500, the budget office reported the cost would be $381.5 million for treatment, or about 33, rather than 1, percent of the revenue.
Seeking help
The dollar figure may be accurate, but it's not realistic because gamblers are not prone to seeking help.
Lynn Burkey has been treating addicted gamblers for the past seven years at Meridian Services in Youngstown.
''There is already a large amount of gambling going on in this state and in this area with the lottery and casinos right across the border,'' Burkey said.
He has seen problem gamblers lose their car, home, spouse, but he has experienced a high success rate with the families who come forward and ask for help.
They attend gamblers anonymous meetings, go through counseling and work on financial planning.
''But gamblers traditionally don't ask for help. We're getting the people who have the courage to ask for help. We have a bunch of people out there suffering in silence,'' Burkey said.
The Learn and Earn proposal was burned by voters, with 2,286,911 votes against and 1,753,555 votes for it.
Last year, Lakes Entertainment, an out-of-state company, tried to persuade voters to support another constitutional amendment to allow a casino north of Cincinnati.
The proposal set aside about 1 percent of the gross casino receipts, estimated to be as high as $231.8 million annually, for problem gambling prevention and treatment programs, or about $2.3 million.
Now under Strickland, the office of budget and management did not address the number of new compulsive gamblers or the overall costs to taxpayers for treatment in an analysis of the amendment.
Voinovich co-chaired the Vote No Casinos Committee, and its argument against the proposal included, ''Issue 6 will create new gambling addicts, ruining thousands of lives.''
The measure went down.
In the latest incarnation, Penn National and Gilbert plan to bring casinos to Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus and Cincinnati.
Again, the Strickland administration's analysis is silent on problem gambling.
John Kohlstrand, Ohio Department of Taxation spokesman, said he was not sure why it was not addressed in 2008, but in talking to analysts who worked on the report this year, ''it just never came up in the course of discussion.''
The proposal for four casinos earmarks 2 percent of the gambling revenue, or about $12.9 million a year, to the treatment of problem gambling, substance abuse and related research.
Gambling addiction counselors and others on the front lines have looked carefully at the broad language used and are concerned, as the tobacco prevention groups learned in this state, that lawmakers and the governor could liberally interpret the words and direct portions of the money toward nongambling problems.
To reassure themselves, they should just reread the reasons for voting against Issue 3, because according to TruthPAC, it seems addictive gambling isn't a problem worth mentioning.
Ohio's arguments for and against Issue 3 and other issues are available at the Ohio secretary of state's Web site, http://www.sos.state.oh.us/SOS/publications/electVoterPubs/issues.aspx
/> Dennis J. Willard can be reached at 614-224-1613 or dwillard@thebeaconjournal.com.
Comments
Click here to post your comments
AKRON, OH
Posted 10:21 PM, 10/17/2009
AS I HAVE POSTED BEFORE ON OTHER SIMILAR ARTICLES - OHIO LOSES ALL AROUND ON THIS GAMBLING ISSUE - CASINOS WILL BE BUILT WITH OUT OF STATE CONTRACTORS AND LABOR - EXPERIENCED STAFF AND CASINO PERSONAL WILL CUT THE LION'S SHARE OF JOBS OUT OF THE PICTURE ALSO - CLAIMS ARE MADE OF 34,000 NEW JOBS - DO YOU THINK ? ADD TO ALL THIS THE TAX CREDITS - FROM REAL ESTATE TO INCOME NOT SPECIFICALLY OUTLINED IN ANY FORMAL CONTRACTING - THERE WILL BE ENOUGH LOOPHOLES - YOU CAN BET - TO MAKE THIS A WORTHWHILE INVESTMENT FOR ALL INVOLVED - EXCEPT CITIZENS OF OHIO - THIS IS JUST ANOTHER AVENUE TO BLEED US - WORTH A GOOD THINK THROUGH
Akron, OH
Posted 11:29 PM, 10/17/2009
here's a question, will the state lose any money that it already has? if the answer is no then what do we, as citizens of ohio, have to lose?
akron, oh
Posted 08:22 AM, 10/18/2009
Thanks Willard. This article has convinced me that casinos in Ohio is a good idea after all.
And let's face it. The gambling addicts would have problems whether or not they had a place to go gamble or not.
columbus, oh
Posted 08:30 AM, 10/18/2009
This issue isn't about gambling addictions. We already have gambling around us, and believe me, the addicts have found it. The problem with Issue 3 is it's simply a bad deal for Ohio. Since they want us to write it in our constitution that they get a monopoly in Ohio, this is the wrong way to bring gambling to Ohio, and it will be nearly impossible to fix it later. The fact that Issue 3 is now under investigation for tampering with absenteee ballots doesn't help either. Is that really the type of people/companies we want running a casino monopoly in Ohio. I'm still waiting for the right deal.
Posted 11:42 AM, 10/18/2009
I am so sick of the "anti-gamblers" in Ohio, almost every excuse they have for not voting for it is unfounded: crime, jobs being filled by people from out of state (who if they move here they will be paying OHIO TAXES), not enough tax will be paid by the casinos (only $651 million in casino tax revenue will be generated each year), etc..., and the excuses that are some what valid, they have no alternative solutions. Ohio is dieing, companies are leaving, college graduates are leaving, the tax payers are taxed to the limits, and no one has an answer to fix it, but everyone has an answer how not to fix it. " No Gambling” Go ahead and vote no on issue 3, and ignore that our state is dieing. Maybe West Virginia or PA, or Michigan with their billions of dollars that we are spending in their casinos can just purchase us out of bankruptcy and just rename the sate and then add gambling. SO VOTE NO ON ISSUE 3 AND SUPPORT THE PITTSBURG STEELERS or THE MICHICAN WOLVEREINS, because we might become one of them when they purchase us out of bankruptcy with our gambling money we could of spent in our own state. Pathetic.
Lefty Lemmingville, Oh
Posted 06:00 PM, 10/18/2009
So what? Even if casinos are built with out-of-state labor and very few jobs are created, the influx of out-of-state workers to operate these casinos will need houses, apartments, vehicles, public transportation, gasoline, groceries, clothing, etc.
I'll take what we can get with the present economy.
Cleveland, OH
Posted 12:11 PM, 10/19/2009
There's risk inherent to everything. Just because a few people can't control themselves, doesn't mean that all of us shouldn't be allowed casinos in our state or the revenues and jobs they create. Addicts will find a way to fulfill their cravings - whether casinos are nearby or not.
I'm a perfectly responsible gambler, make an honest living and want casinos here in Ohio because I'm sick of seeing gambling money leave the state. Keep those revenues here to benefit Ohioans! YES ON 3!
Posted 10:56 AM, 10/20/2009
Addiction? I know a family that lost $300K in retirement funds because the wife was addicted to the Ohio Lottery. The addiction argument holds no water whatsoever as long as the Ohio Lottery exists.
bellefontaine, oh
Posted 12:27 PM, 10/21/2009
I wonder how many of these touted new casino jobs are the "seat changer" jobs? What's that? That's the job where employees cruise the casino in the slot machine area to replace the seat bottoms that have become soiled by the defecations and urinations of slot machine addicts who would not use a bathroom because they were afraid they would miss out on the big jackpot! This gives new meaning to addiction, don't you think?
